On Wednesday, May 27th, close to 30 mayors and other elected officials from communities across Northern Ontario and Northern Quebec held a press conference in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, to highlight the inaccurate and deceptive anti-forestry campaign being waged by Greenpeace and other like-minded activists. Following the press conference, the regional leaders met with a range of federal officials and frankly discussed their concerns regarding market campaign activities, which specifically target the purchase of products from Canada’s boreal forest. The elected municipal officials highlighted Canada’s green credentials, its world leading forestry practices, and the socio-economic importance of the forest products industry to hundreds of communities across the country.

Greg Rickford, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario, and Denis Lebel, Canada’s Minister of Infrastructure, Communities and Intergovernmental Affairs and Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec issued a strong statement of support, pledging to “strongly defend our nation’s record and reputation against anyone who would claim otherwise.”

Because it is so important, we’re posting links to several news stories and press releases in French and English to give you the full picture of what happened.

[…] Many people representing these communities have written to Greenpeace to voice their concerns about the potential consequences of their campaigning. Greenpeace has in nearly every case lacked the simple integrity to respond. Indeed, we hear from many of them that Greenpeace has never even visited their communities. […]